Rebounding Haynesville shale breaks 2011 production record

Rebounding Haynesville shale breaks 2011 production record

1of15Improvements in drilling and fracking techniques are contributing to the revival of the Haynesville shale. Natural gas production is expected to hit a new record there later this year.
NEXT: Frac sand mines are booming in Texas. Photo: Elizabeth Conley, Chronicle / Houston Chronicle

2of15Heading to the mineDrive up to Emerge Energy Services' sand mine near Kosse, Texas and a sign points the way for "frac trucks" to head to the sand loading site. Demand for sand is surging as oil and gas production in the Permian Basin is booming again. Not only is the need for more sand on the rise with the increase in oil and gas production in west Texas, but much more sand is being pumped into each well now through hydraulic fracturing with the emerging thesis that more sand equals more oil extracted.Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle

3of15Pushing the sandTyler Merenda pushes sand into one of the pits at the Superior Silica Sands sand mine near Kosse, Texas. The 300-acre mine is owned by the Superior Silica subsidiary of Fort Worth-based Emerge Energy Services. The sand is being moved into place so it can be mined with greater ease.Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff

4of15Readying the cannonJulio Griffin adjusts the water pressure on a hydro cannon at the Superior Silica Sands sand mine. Many sand mines, including this one, have shifted from traditional mining techniques to using the high-pressure water cannon to excavate the sand.Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle

5of15Blasting the sandJulio Griffin runs the hydro cannon to reduces small hills of clay-like sand into a watery slurry that is filtered, processed, dried into fine particles and loaded onto trucks bound for hydraulic fracturing operations across Texas. It will take up to 1,000 trucks to haul enough of this sand to frac a single large well.Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff

6of15Creating the slurryThe sand is pushed into an intake pipe for further processing at the Superior Silica Sands sand mine. The hydro blasts the sand into a watery slurry, which is drained and piped to the mine's "wet plant." The hydraulic mining method reduces the amount of dust in the air by keeping it in a slurry form through much of the process.Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff

7of15Moving to the "wet plant"The sand slurry is sent to the "wet plant" to separate the silica particles from the water at the Superior Silica Sands sand mine. The impurities are removed from the sand and it's separated out into different grades of sand.Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff

8of15Keeping the sand wetThe sand is then transported toward the "dry plant" to remove the moisture and create the finished product. A worker sprays down piles of sand that fell during the transportation process. That sand will be moved separately.Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff

9of15Dropping off the silicaThe treated sand is dropped off a conveyor onto a pile at the Superior Silica Sands sand mine. Trucks move the sand to the "dry plant" to remove the moisture and create the finished product.Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle

10of15Heading to the "dry plant"The Kosse sand mine's deposits go at least 100 feet deep, but Emerge Energy Services is only mining to 60 feet at this point. The mine is the company's smallest, but it's still churning out at least 30,000 tons a month.Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff

11of15Piling up the productSand piles at the Superior Silica Sands sand mine. As drilling has recovered in recent months, particularly in West Texas' Permian Basin, the sand mining industry has exploded. It is producing more than ever to meet the demand of an oil and gas sector that is using up to 20 times more sand per well than it did during peak of the last energy boom. Across the state, already home to nearly 10 frac sand mines, operators are moving to expand quickly, setting the stage for Texas to become a bigger player - and competitor - in an industry long dominated by purer Wisconsin and Minnesota sands.Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff

12of15Surveying the sand empireDavid Heagle, plant manager, looks across the Superior Silica Sands sand mine. The mine's employee count over the past year has rebounded to 30 from its oil-bust low of four, and the company recently acquired another Texas sand mine south of San Antonio. "People were skittish in the beginning if the recovery was real," Heagle said. "But it seems like the real deal now."Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff

13of15Creating a finished productIn the fracking process, sand is mixed into fluids that crack shale rock to prop open the fissures to allow oil and gas to escape, hence the industry name "proppant" to describe the fine grains. The largest wells now consume up to 25,000 tons - 50 million pounds - of sand each, up from 1,500 tons, or about 3 million pounds, per well during the boom years through 2014. When oil prices crashed and companies sought ways to lower production costs, drillers began experimenting with the idea of using more sand - cheaper than chemicals and ceramic proppants - to increase oil and gas output. Drillers are creating much longer wells that extend a mile or two horizontally and sometimes pumping more than 5,000 pounds of sand per foot, according to Rick Shearer, the chief executive of sand manufacturer Emerge Energy Services. "The switch is certainly flipped, and it flipped very quickly," Shearer said. "We've seen a dramatic shift in demand. We're scrambling now and sold out of some finer grades of sand."Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle

14of15Drying the sand for silosThe finished sand is pumped into silos at the "dry plant." The silos allow trucks to drive underneath them, and the sand is dumped into the back of the trucks.Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff

15of15Leaving the mineSand is loaded into a truck at the Superior Silica Sands sand mine. The frac trucks have specialty tarps that wrap or unwrap around the top and sides to secure the sand within the back of the trucks. Once loaded, the trucks hit the road to deliver the sand to the desired oil or gas well, or to the nearest rail terminal for shipments that are farther away.Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff

The Haynesville shale in East Texas and Louisiana hasn't boomed for nearly a decade, but a recent resurgence in activity has pushed the gassy shale play's output to a record high this spring.

The Haynesville is churning out a record high of 10.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day this April, surpassing the 2011 peak of more than 10.4 billion cubic feet daily, according to the U.S. Energy Department, which projects that output will jump to 10.75 billion cubic feet a day in May.

The surge is buoyed by moderately higher gas prices and increasing demand coming from the influx of new liquefied natural gas export projects coming online along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. Maybe most important is the Haynesville's proximity to the Gulf Coast compared to other gas-producing areas. The gas also is selling to petrochemical plants for feedstock, and a lot of it is even being piped to Mexico.

The Haynesville was the nation's leading natural gas source until 2012 when it was surpassed by the Appalachia region, including the Marcellus and Utica shale plays mostly in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.

The Haynesville also dropped off as gas prices fell and energy companies shifted their focus to shale plays that contained larger volumes of crude oil like South Texas' Eagle For shale.

West Texas' booming Permian Basin also has surpassed the Haynesville entirely from all the associated gas that comes along with the oil production. The Permian is producing almost 14 billion cubic feet of gas a day, although pipeline shortages in the region have meant many companies are paying to have the gas shipped away for no profit.

In the Haynesville though, production also has become much more efficient during the course of the past decade, according to a new report from the Moody's Investors Service.

"The economics of production in the Haynesville have improved since earlier in the decade, and the basin is now experiencing a resurgence of activity as the economics of production have improved," Moody's noted.

Leading Haynesville companies like Oklahoma's Chesapeake Energy are producing more with longer horizontal wells and much larger volumes of sand and water used in the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, process to free more gas from the shale rock.

"Capital investment in the Haynesville is likely to continue over the near term as producers benefit from increasing Gulf Coast demand," Moody's concluded.

Jordan Blum is a senior energy reporter at the Houston Chronicle since 2015. He has extensively covered the industry from the 2014 bust in oil prices to the more recent boom in West Texas’ Permian Basin. He has written about everything from Texas’ national lead in renewable wind power to the Houston area’s growing dominance in petrochemical and plastics manufacturing.

Previously, Jordan was an award-winning reporter at The Advocate in Baton Rouge and New Orleans as a statehouse reporter and education writer, and then as the newspaper’s Washington Bureau chief. Jordan is a New Orleans native who graduated from Texas Christian University with a journalism degree before going back to work at daily newspapers in Louisiana.